


Fathers and Sons

by devilinthedetails



Category: PIERCE Tamora - Works, Tortall - Tamora Pierce
Genre: Adorable Baby Alert, Family, Father & Son - Freeform, Gen, Memories, Wistful, reflections
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-16
Updated: 2018-09-16
Packaged: 2019-07-13 02:52:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 866
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16008761
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/devilinthedetails/pseuds/devilinthedetails
Summary: Watching Gary care for Gilmyn, Gareth reflects on fathers and sons.





	Fathers and Sons

Fathers and Sons

“Wonderful—Gilmyn is up again,” Gary interrupted himself in the midst of explaining to Gareth a detailed plan on how to distribute food from the Crown’s granaries to the thousands of starving peasants scattered throughout the country as Gilmyn’s high-pitched wail cut through the study. Cythera was sick with a fever, and Gary had volunteered to care for Gilmyn, who was proving to be a ruddy-cheeked tyrant of a baby, bawling every fifteen minutes. “If I blink, I miss his naps.” 

“He has strong pipes,” remarked Gareth dryly, watching with a strange surge of wistfulness in a chest still recovering from his heart attack as his son crossed the study to the cushioned baby basket where his grandson lay smothered in blankets. As Gary gathered a kicking and crying Gilmyn into his arms and rocked him in a chair by the fire, Gareth remembered holding his own son. 

Gary’s eyes had been so wide—with innocence or with wisdom, Gareth had never been able to decide—and everything had fascinated him. Even as a baby, Gary had been so eager to unravel all the world’s mysteries, but in the process of figuring them out, he had grown too fast for Gareth. 

Gareth had tried to be an attentive father, but somehow, while he was training pages or reviewing government documents, Gary had learned to talk, walk, read, write, and prank. Exhausted by his son’s boundless capacity for mischief, Gareth had prayed every night for Mithros to mature his boy—to grant him a sense of responsibility commensurate with his intelligence. Then, as if to prove that Gareth should have been more careful what he prayed for, before Gareth could truly process that his son was a man, he was married and determining the fate of the realm more than Gareth did, his fascination with everything morphing into a wry frustration with intractability of a world that too often refused to conform to logic. Gareth was proud of the man his son had become, but he missed the wide-eyed innocence of Gary’s boyhood era. 

“The healers say that’s proof he’s healthy.” Gary’s words broke Gareth out of his musing, and in the orange glow of the firelight, Gareth could see shadowy splotches beneath his son’s eyes, dark testimonies to the many sleepless nights he had endured courtesy of Gilmyn’s impressive pipes. “I try to look at it philosophically as my comeuppance for all the times I must have kept you awake when I was a baby, Father.” 

“You weren’t a particularly troublesome baby.” Gareth gave a smile slight as the line separating the past from the present, reminiscing on. how Gary had been a cheerful baby. He had even, Gareth was certain, given his first grin within an hour of his birth. The healers had insisted until they were blue in the face that babies that young were incapable of the expression and it must have been gas, but the older Gary got, the more confident Gareth had become that it had indeed been a grin Gary had given him. After all, Gary learned to talk, read, and write before the healers had predicted. Why shouldn’t he have been ahead of schedule with his grinning as well? “You held off giving me sleepless nights until you could walk and talk, at which point it was over for everyone, not just me.” 

“I see my son is starting early.” Gary had managed to rock Gilmyn into silence but not slumber. “Great to know that I have many more years of trials to look forward to if my son is anything like me.”

“If he’s anything like you, he’ll grow up fine in the end.” Since his sister’s death, Gareth had become more forgiving of his son’s flaws and his own as if some of Lianne’s gentleness had seeped into him. “There’s worse people he could be like than you.” 

When his son gaped at him because even his backhand compliments were rare as snow in July, earning an approving coo for this expression from Gilmyn who enjoyed nothing more than watching people make funny faces, Gareth added crisply, “By that, I refer, of course, to murderers and traitors.” 

“Thank you for the compliment.” Gary wrinkled his nose, drawing a gleeful gurgle from Gilmyn. “I love you too, Father.”

“I don’t know what I did before your steady stream of sarcasm entered my life, son.” Though his words were dry as sand, he was certain that his world must have been a more boring, less amusing place without his son in it to challenge him on a daily basis. 

“Provided your own caustic commentary, no doubt.” Gary contorted his features so completely that it could only be for the benefit of Gilmyn, who drooled in delight. Swiping Gilmyn’s chin clean with a handkerchief pulled from his pocket, Gary chuckled. “The little monster is drooling, Father, a sure sign that he’s getting ready to devour you in one gulp.” 

“He’s closer to you,” pointed out Gareth, stretching back in his chair, content as a cat with the circumstances. “He’ll eat you first, and I’ll have time to flee, fending him off with my cane if need be.”


End file.
